Gillibrand Introduces Bill to Expand Meat Testing Requirements

June 10, 2011

Following the recent E. coli outbreak in Europe, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced a meat safety bill (S.1157) into the Senate on June 8, 2011. The bill targets high-risk pathogens and currently unregulated strains of E. coli. The legislation requires plants that produce the cuts and trimmings that make ground beef to test their products before they are ground and again before all the components are ground together. For facilities where both source trim and grinding occur, the legislation requires one test of the source trim and another test of the final ground product. Both the originating foreign facility and the receiving domestic facility would be required to test the meat. Slaughterhouses, producers and grinding facilities receiving trimmings would all be required to use independent testing facilities operating under annual contracts to avoid retribution for positive E. coli test results. Producers making under the threshold of 25,000 lbs of trim per day would have 3 years before compliance becomes mandatory. Senator Gillibrand’s bill additionally calls for habitual violators to be listed on a public website.  Senator Gillibrand further called on Congress to refrain from cutting federal funding for the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which was enacted in January.

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